“Give this band a name!!” the Instagram caption read. The video showed four bright pink and orange shrimp, antennae seeming to wave as they spun around and bobbed up-and-down to a chucklesome version of the “Star Wars” cantina song. One played a melodica; another, a banjo; a hand can be seen cranking the wooden gears that make the figures dance.
The shrimp are the work of Amedeo Capelli, a self-taught carpenter and maker of hand-operated automatons, or moving devices. He lives in Varese, Italy, north of Milan.
Mr. Capelli has been making his creations in his garage-cum-workshop at home for the past two years and selling via his Etsy shop and social media platforms. The business goes by the name Stoccafisso Design, or stockfish, one of the terms Italians use for cod (the first objects he sold were papier-mâché fish).
“When I started,” said Mr. Capelli, 31, in a recent video interview, it didn’t seem likely that this kind of work could “become my only job.”
Ten years ago Mr. Capelli briefly produced the packaging for beer bottles and crafted some bottle openers and beer tap handles. Then he made furniture, and had a brief stint in the cosplay industry, producing costumes, armor and swords. But, he said, he really didn’t want to do any of that as a career.
